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Saudis May Award Railway Bids for Chemicals, Mining Hubs

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia may award bids to
build a railway connecting its petrochemical and mining hubs on
the Persian Gulf early next year, an official said.

Saudi Railway Co. may begin work on a 335-kilometer (208-mile) railway linking Jubail, Ras al-Khair and Dammam in 2013,
Ahmed al-Balawi, the royal commission’s general manager for
technical affairs at Jubail and Yanbu, said in an interview.

The royal commission has postponed plans to expand the King
Fahad industrial port at Jubail, the major port for
petrochemical exporters in Saudi Arabia, for at least five
years. “In 2008, we were rushing to expand the port but when
the global recession hit exporters, we reconsidered our plans,”
he said today in Khobar.

The existing port in Jubail is capable of handling exports
from the new SATORP refinery and $20 billion Sadara chemical
plant Saudi Arabian Oil Co. is building with Total SA and Dow
Chemical Co. “We’ve already allocated lands in the port for
both projects to build their own export facilities,” he said.

The royal commission plans to award 12.65 billion Saudi
riyals ($3.37 billion) in contracts for engineering and
construction work at the Jubail petrochemical hub, he told a
conference in Khobar. The work will include roads, housing,
water-treatment facilities and chemical plant infrastructure.

The commission will also award 5.98 billion riyals in
construction contracts to the mining center of Ras al-Khair, he
said.